Feminist Blog Outs Trans Women, Posts Pictures,
And incites violence against them. This definitely happens in the comments
As it’s become clear that the “WBW” policy is no longer a policy, trans women have begun attending MichFest openly. In response, that repository of anti-trans hate speech – GenderTrender (not going to link) – has posted pictures and real names of four trans women for the purposes of harassing them and possibly inciting violence.
labelle77 on Livejournal wrote a post that covers this fairly thoroughly, as well as WordPress’ unwillingness to enforce their own TOS:
This is a letter I’m going to send off, and link to, and hopefully broadcast in an attempt to get WordPress to take action to enforce their own Terms of Service. Please feel free to link, repost, forward, mail and any other spreading of the word you can do. ♥
While the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (MWMF) is an event you may or may not usually concern yourself with, I wanted to bring to your attention an appalling violation of transwomen’s privacy and safety that is happening in conjunction with the festival right now, and the refusal of blog website WordPress to take any action to enforce their terms of service and protect a vulnerable population from harassment or worse.
I’ve never attended or really even cared about MWMF myself, but was aware from friends who have gone that there has been an ongoing controversy regarding the attendance of transwomen. There are many transwomen who love to go and bond with other women. There’s also a faction of MWMF attendees that feel the festival should be free of all persons born with penises and open to “womyn born womyn” only.
I don’t really want to get into the body-parts-based admission policies of the MWMF, however. What really disgusts me is a blog post related to this topic on the blog GenderTrender. (I’m not publicly linking to it in order to refrain from compromising the privacy of these women further). I find the post hateful in so many ways, the least of which is actually the blogger’s only “womyn-born-womyn” stance on the controversy. No, what is really disgusting is what she feels her opinion entitles her to do.
This blog post outs several transwomen with both pseudonyms AND legal names, their photos, where they can be found at the festival, and in some cases their profession and employment. Being on this “hitlist” of transwomen was not consented to by any of them, and it associates them with accusations of volatile behavior that the author has absolutely no proof any of them participated in. The blogger refuses to use female pronouns and asserts that these women, who live in one of the most marginalized segments of our society, are “chest pounding” and trying to assert male privilege in invading a womens’ space – as if people who’ve survived gender dysphoria and live outside of our binary ideas of gender have any male privilege to speak of. I can’t even fathom the kind of vulnerability and violation these women must feel. They’re now at risk for ongoing harassment from MWMF-goers, both online and in person at any future fests, and at risk of harassment and potentially violence from any other hateful person that happens to stumble on that post.
The blogger is also putting these people in possible professional peril – at least one woman is listed by both her legal name, profession, and business name AND by the stage name she uses as an actress in (feminist-award-winning, actually) adult films. Suddenly, anyone who googles her in a professional capacity becomes immediately aware of her other work, without any consent from her.
I know there are several people, myself included, that reported to WordPress this gross violation of privacy AND the WordPress Terms of Service, which states “By making Content available, you represent and warrant that…the Content does not contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party.” (http://en.wordpress.com/tos/)
Everyone who has made a report to WordPress received a single paragraph canned reply that states:
“WordPress.com is in no position to arbitrate disputes or make judgment on such claims. As per http://en.support.wordpress.com/disputes/, please provide us with a Court Order including a court’s decision regarding this particular content; if any content is found to be defamatory or illegal by a court of law, it will be removed immediately from our service. Any court order, should you obtain one, must be sent to the following e-mail address:court-orders@wordpress.com”
Even more than I was outraged at the blogger herself, I’m outraged at WordPress. Absolutely they have the ability and the RESPONSIBILITY to enforce their terms of service. Absolutely they can tell a blogger she must remove photos used without permission. Absolutely they can insist that a blogger cannot out members of vulnerable minority without consent. They DO NOT have to wait for a court of law to enforce their own Terms of Service.
Because WordPress seems flatly uninterested in taking any action to protect these women, I thought I’d write to you. A good old-fashioned media shaming campaign might possibly make them take a hard look at their terrible policies of doing absolutely nothing to protect a vulnerable population and shirking their responsibility to ensure that their terms of service are followed..
Thank you for your time.
autumn59 comments:
…”Types Of Blogs” page that addresses this kind of behavior too:
“Personal attack blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of attacking an individual or group of individuals are not welcome on WordPress.com. We have a particularly low tolerance for anonymous bloggers who make personal attacks without standing by their words with their real name.”
I’ve reported the blog in question to WordPress myself prior to reading your commentary — WordPress seems a little slow to address reports about their attack blogs.
Unfortunately, it seems that as these trans misogynist radical feminists become less relevant and their views are increasingly viewed as toxic, they become more vicious in their attacks.
Perhaps using the DMCA provisions would work better. Surely she doesn’t have permission to use their photographs, so if the Outed women were to complain to WordPress on the grounds that their copyrights are being infringed, WordPress would be faster to take action. The problem is, nobody else can do it.
Jessica
8 Sep 11 at 10:06 pm
“Unfortunately, it seems that as these trans misogynist radical feminists become less relevant and their views are increasingly viewed as toxic, they become more vicious in their attacks.”
You just summed it up right there.
Denny
8 Sep 11 at 10:12 pm
I just want to say some of the pictures on that wordpress blog are actually deep-linked, meaning the author is NOT hosting local copies. These images’ domains are for prettyqueer and facebook. The owners/hosters could re-name, re-upload or make the picture files private, as a temporary solution.
tinyrevolution
9 Sep 11 at 12:51 am
I’m very very deeply anti what these people are doing, but I figure that I should clear up a point that most people aren’t aware of.
I’m a photographer, as such I’m very aware of what the legal (not to mention moral) implications of photographing people are – and objecting on those grounds aren’t going anywhere.
The photographed party has no rights to how they are re-presented unless you are arguing financial considerations – after all, when did you last hear of a murderer or rapist getting acquitted on the grounds that they didn’t agree to their not agreeing to surveillance photography. Doesn’t happen right?
When you are in public you tacitly (with no withdrawal clause) agree to be photographed with no qualifications – the nearest being that judges can on occasion step in when money is involved – so this is a pointless avenue to pursue.
I don’t know what the deal is with the mich fest photographic policies, but my understanding is that they have recently attempted (perhaps allowed to maybe) screw over a very prominent photographer who is (supposedly) one of their own (and also a fairly cool person) on the grounds of permission to photograph.
Researching their policies should be a first step – they should be able to elucidate on what photographs taken on ground can be used for. If the photographs were taken offsite then the rules are different, but only one needs to be taken onsite (backup and archive – yes?).
~
All legal shit aside – Fuck I’m sick of fuckwits trying to dehumanise people – it’s tiresome and if it weren’t so dangerous it’d be totally pathetic.
Em
9 Sep 11 at 5:07 am
*Unfortunately, it seems that as these trans misogynist radical feminists become less relevant and their views are increasingly viewed as toxic…*
But is this really true? I submit that an unholy alliance between trans misogynist radical feminists and the Christian right — one which is occurring in fact if not by agreement — is feeding and strengthening both groups. Neither group is going away soon, and we can’t count on actions such as this being last gasps of a dying movement.
GallingGalla
9 Sep 11 at 5:59 am
Apparently, this page is the proper place to report abuse of this nature. http://en.wordpress.com/abuse/
Jan
9 Sep 11 at 7:07 am
It appears that these radical transphobic feminists are more masculine in their behavior than the Trans women. Disgusting!
NikkiH
9 Sep 11 at 7:12 am
Even if I someday pass I’m never going to try and go stealth. It would make me lazy and weak and also a target for this sort of nonsense. I’d rather just be surrounded by blithering, screaming idiots everywhere I go. It’s like having my own Schoenberg symphony.
BraceHare
9 Sep 11 at 8:39 am
I remember the exact moment when I decided that these people were no longer worth my time and that I’d no longer engage directly with them. One of these bigots had been dropping her shit all over a feminist LJ community I was involved with, and in the process of bringing her prejudiced filth to the attention of the moderators, I stumbled across a post where she basically accused Camp Trans activists of deliberately causing a terrible and tragic car accident which had killed some MichFest attendees on their way home. I don’t remember exactly what I did after coming across that, but I’m pretty sure it involved turning off my computer and going to play with my cats for a while.
I’m tired of this shit. I really don’t see how publishing a list like this makes these bloggers any better than the total shits who publish the names and addresses of doctors who provide abortions. They’re trying to shame and intimidate us into silence. I have no interest in going to MichFest and I sincerely doubt I ever will — even to protest — but this is unacceptable behavior. If even one of the women named is assaulted in the wake of this shit, I hope the radfem bloggers responsible for this are charged as accessories.
They won’t be, of course. But a girl can dream.
Themiscyra
9 Sep 11 at 2:15 pm
The fact that this list exists is quite horrifying :(
And they don’t lack hypocrisy, either, blaming on trans women that “many female butches’ sex and gender are questioned”. I mean, the fact that some cis women also suffer from transphobic witch hunts is of course not the fault of those responsible for those witch hunts, right.
Butch Cassidyke
9 Sep 11 at 3:16 pm
I’m hoping the owners of the deep linked pics replace the affected pictures with photos of the poster of that vile blog
diz
9 Sep 11 at 4:10 pm
“Even if I someday pass I’m never going to try and go stealth. It would make me lazy and weak”
lazy and weak, eh? do explain.
MHS
11 Sep 11 at 1:33 pm
I wish I knew what to do to help fight this.
jayinchicago
12 Sep 11 at 9:53 pm
If you work to reinforce kyriarchy against people you don’t like, while fighting it for yourself, YOU ARE NOT A FEMINIST.
Gallus Mag, you are not a feminist. You are a lousy, lying, vicious, insulting, slut-shaming tool of the patriarchy. You don’t even want to dismantle the Master’s house, you just want to toss him out of it and live in it yourself.
You are not a feminist if your response to a perceived slight is destruction.
My name is Katherine Lee Berger Tremaine. I am a trans woman, I am a Minneapolitan, and I will not be silenced.
Katie B.
13 Sep 11 at 5:22 am
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Katie B., that is a no-true-Scotsman fallacy. You don’t, nor do I, have the authority to declare all the feminisms we don’t like “not feminism.” Especially when we are talking about attitudes that have been endemic to entire waves.
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28 Sep 11 at 11:39 am
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Since it apparently needs to be said, I won’t be approving any comments that defend stalking and outing as reasonable behavior.
I also will not approve any comments that places trans women’s womanhood in question. It’s axiomatic that trans women are women and trans men are men, and that won’t be a topic for debate here.
So, if you plan to post a comment that attempts to defend stalking and outing or that either debates or outright denies that trans women are really women, you’re wasting your time. There are perfectly available anti-trans hate blogs where others will coddle your bullshit.
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